The future is here already with Terasystem GroupNo other Italian company has contributed as much as Terasystem to innovation in the field of IT infrastructure and data protection. A unique experience lasting decades, marked by the groundbreaking development of "made in Italy" solutions, far ahead of their time and ahead of the big multinationals whose vast claims to innovation actually amount to nothing more than acquisitions. The past is the source of our experience and a certificate of guarantee for our customers.
>> 1994 RAID Terasystem introduces Data General's Clariion RAID for open platforms with a SCSI interface. The first customer for this technology (practically unknown at the time for open systems) was Banca Popolare di Bergamo, today UBI. Five years later, in 1999, EMC acquired Data General and entered the market for open storage systems.
>> 1994 Optical jukeboxes Terasystem introduces the first IDE optical jukeboxes in Italy imported directly from the USA. The jukeboxes were integrated together via a specially developed software solution that made them transparent to applications and the operating system. In practice they were seen as a normal very high capacity hard disk (in those days a HD could store 20MB, whereas an optical disk had a capacity of 650MB!). Jukeboxes provided capacity unheard of at the time (hundreds of GB). Terasystem realized optical archiving projects for major national organizations including:
Over 500 optical jukeboxes were installed over a 6-8 year period guaranteeing business continuity for clients, upgrading of systems with the latest technologies and integration with new applications. >> 1995 Legato NetWorker Terasystem brings Legato NetWorker to Italy, a revolutionary backup solution that automatically collects and stores data from distributed client/servers across the network. At that time all backup solutions saved data locally to stand alone tapes. Instead Legato NetWorker works with all the most popular platforms: AIX, HP-UX, SUN/OS, SGI IRIX, Tru64, Sco-Unix, Novell, MS-DOS, OS/2, etc. In the space of a few years Legato NetWorker became the standard among Italian telecommunications companies with 9 out of 10 telco companies adopting this solution (source: IDC). In practice Terasystem represented Legato Italy. Thousands of installations were realized across the country and the vast majority of customers from that period remain Terasystem clients today. Eight years later, in 2003, Legato NetWorker was acquired by EMC.
>> 1995 RAID Made in Italy Terasystem develops its own line of SCSI OpenRAID disk systems. Terasystem designed and produced in Italy a line of multi platform mid-range RAID systems capable of competing with comparable US products. Proof of this can be seen in the fact that companies of the calibre of Storagetek, HP Italy, Siemens Nixdorf, Sun Microsystem and Bull resold our OpenRAID systems on the Italian market to leading national companies.
>> 1996 SAN Terasystem introduces the Storage Area Network (SAN) concept for the first time in Italy via a commercial agreement with the US company Ancor Communications, one of the world's leading manufacturers of fibre channel switches. Ancor was acquired by Qlogic in 2000. The experience gained by Terasystem in this field was later put to use in the realization of large and very large infrastructures for major national clients. Today Terasystem is able to offer top level skills and expertise on Brocade and Cisco SAN devices.
>> 1997 AIT Terasystem introduces the innovative Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT) technology, a high capacity tape capable of super fast restore times thanks to built-in flash memory in the cartridge. This technology, together with tape libraries from the US company Qualstar became the de facto standard in hundreds of Italian companies due to its outstanding performance, capacity and reliability. The product was so successful that even Storagetek Italy began to offer these libraries for the open platform through an agreement with Terasystem.
>> 1998 Clusters Terasystem introduces the first cluster software solutions on the Italian market from the US company Full Time Software, later renamed Qualix Group. This solution was extremely sophisticated for its time, able to manage 8 clustered servers and guarantee operational continuity. Qualix Group was acquired by Legato Systems in 1999.
>> 1999 Serverless backups Terasystem implements - for the first time in Europe - serverless backups on the Legato NetWorker platform working directly with the American development labs. This functionality optimizes data routing through the SAN for backups. The architecture allows HD data to be copied to tape libraries exploiting SAN technology. Terasystem has realized numerous backup projects integrating tape libraries, servers and storage in a serverless SAN architecture.
>> 1999 Fast Solution Backup (FSB) Terasystem develops Fast Solution Backup (FSB), a product that allows you to automate and optimize the protection of databases in business critical environments. It dramatically cuts backup time windows and represents the ideal solution to minimize applications downtime and limit the impact on production systems. FSB performs hot backups of one or more instances of the database by copying it to a secondary volume/storage device. The software automatically integrates the database backup procedures with synchronization of the shadow image, thus reducing hot backup times to a minimum. The secondary storage copy can be imported to a proxy client and then backed up to a tape library. The copies are made directly on the storage array to minimize impact on the performance of the applications server. When needed the data on the secondary storage device are always available to rapidly restore any systems hit by a fault. Using one of the taped copies it is possible to either restore the individual data file or previous versions of the production environment. FSB is independent of the platform or backup software in use. It optimizes backups of the database table space, enhances the benefits of snapshots, reduces CPU workload (host side), guarantees recovery of the last database transaction directly from the storage array disks and uses the FC protocol to write data to tape. FSB is quick to configure using a simple wizard and only a few database settings plus some information to define the volume group for copying.
>> 2000 Storage Domain Server Terasystem introduces a new concept with this advanced solution that eliminates downtime due to storage operations. Synchronous mirroring of virtual disks on physically separate storage servers means that they can be taken out of service independently without impacting overall performance.
>> 2000 Smart Suite Terasystem develops Smart Suite, a suite of products with a single graphic interface that simplifies the management of data and storage resources and automatically performs a wide range of tasks with no need for special technical expertise. It offers real time visibility on all backup operations, reducing the time spent monitoring systems. Smart Suite informs you immediately on the outcome of scheduled backups and provides instant alerts on any problems with the LAN or storage devices. Backup operations are performed automatically much more quickly and can be monitored via the browser. The solution also provides proactive recognition to predict network malfunctions well in advance, before they cause a serious problem. The agentless solution requires no software installation on the clients, and automatic discovery streamline the distribution of software licenses. The suite also generates reports on resource utilization, statistics to enable global assessment of the entire backup architecture and capacity planning and control functionality to optimize management of backup storage resources.
>> 2001 iSCSI Terasystem introduces the first iSCSI cards for LAN-based storage infrastructure. The iSCSI protocol sends commands to SCSI memory devices on the servers or other remotes storage devices (NAS or SAN) which appear to the system as physically local drives. Unlike the fibre channel protocol, iSCSI enables TCP/IP packaging and therefore the use of existing LAN infrastructure. Today, many manufacturers offer this solution for integration of their storage solutions.
>> 2002 Storage Universal Gateway Terasystem introduces its own “Storage Universal Gateway” virtualization solution, designed to optimize utilization of all storage resources across the organization to achieve greater efficiency, maximum effectiveness and dramatically reduced operating costs. The solution creates a single volume that acts as a virtual file system, transparent to all applications, combining heterogeneous existing archiving systems: disk or RAID arrays, tape libraries, CAS systems, etc. Essentially it provides a file container of unlimited size, available 24 hours a day, allowing you to organize your data in multilevel architectures under an ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) logic. Customers who have adopted this solution include hundreds of major Italian companies, including RAI, which manages 32 centres archiving all radio broadcasts and part of its TV output.
>> 2003 Virtual Tape Libraries Terasystem introduces virtual tape libraries (VTL) for data backup optimization. Thanks to our extensive experience on numerous large backup projects, VTLs right away proved an invaluable asset in managing increasingly complex backup / restore operations. Terasystem was one of the first companies in Italy to offer this technology as an alternative to conventional tape.
>> 2004 Thin Provisioning Terasystem introduce 3PAR for the first time in Italy “thin provisioning” storage solutions. This technology separates allocation of memory from its physical use, delivering savings of over 50% of storage space. It enables us to create virtual volumes of any dimension and unlimited access, even when the disks are not physically present. Storage administrators normally try to estimate capacity needs for a given application taking into account potential future growth. Studies show that in practice only 25% of the extra capacity is actually used, a huge waste in terms of under utilized infrastructure and unnecessary purchase, operating and maintenance costs.
>> 2005 Deduplication Terasystem introduces deduplication technology in Italy well ahead of the big multinationals operating in this area today. The solutions introduced include:
Terasystem manages the biggest installed base of deduplication backup projects in Italy, realized for over 120 large and medium size customers. These include major operators such as Telecom Italia and Wind which have adopted this technology for data backup and vaulting.
>> 2006 Deduplication for z/OS Terasystem introduces the first deduplication solution for mainframe z/OS. Based on the Luminex Channel Gateway this solution emulates storage (deduplication, open RAID, LTO tape libraries) on 3480 and 3590 media without modifications to existing platforms. The system acts as an ESCON / FICON gateway to storage connected via fibre channel, SCSI, iSCSI or NAS via Ethernet. To the host, disks and RAIDs appear as tape drives, without compromising other channels. Terasystem clients include major national financial, insurance and banking organisations.
>> 2007 Glasshouse Consulting Terasystem brings Glasshouse methodology to Italy, a new form of IT consulting that delivers firm deadlines and measurable results and spells a clean break with the past: no more bulky theoretical manuals, no more “ifs and buts”, or days of hugely expensive engineering time to come up with a design that, often as not, proves ill suited to the job in hand. Terasystem has changed the rules of the game, once again bringing to Italy a completely new approach.
>> 2010 CLOUD Terasystem announces a range of truly innovative solutions for Cloud Service management of company processes. Numerous major national companies have already adopted Terasystem solutions for “pay for use” service delivery. A distinctive feature of Terasystem Cloud Services is their easy integration capability with legacy systems, interfacing quickly and transparently with existing IT platforms to create an ecosystem that provides the best of both worlds. This integrated approach enables smooth, painless migration from proprietary systems to cloud computing and allows for a gradual transition of systems over time. |
